This is the duo of Harald Sack Ziegler and Frank Schültge Blumm aka Sack & Blumm, and this is the first release on Staubgold since 2003's Kind Kind. For Kind Kind, they sent "musical" letters back and forth between Cologne and Berlin. For Returns, they sat side-by-side in front of their recording equipment in Berlin to be able to communicate their musical ideas more directly. Sack & Blumm present a very autonomous, unpretentious music; music which caters to no audience and which is vaguely reminiscent of the kind of music children play, but which never attempts to emulate their naïveté, due to the subtle virtuosity with which they play their instruments. They're not so much playful as they are receptive in their play, always willing and prepared to follow their ears. Sack & Blumm give each other a lot of space. Within these spaces, their instruments meet, mostly without the disguise of effects. And just like the drops on the cover designed by Eric "E*Rock" Mast (head of the Audio Dregs label), are not just a displays of themselves, but seem to present a microscopic viewing of something underneath them. The compositions of Sack & Blumm are also apt to be acoustic amplifiers of the minutest soundscapes, to serve as magnifying glasses for extremely delicate musical processes and events. And there are quite a lot of these on Returns. Seven guest musicians left their traces on the 23 tracks. Elaborately-arranged fabrics of percussion; the interplay of many-voiced horns with trunks, doors, guitars, pianos, elastophones and unobtrusive electronica; a melody triggering fleeting memories of a Western; breathing sound loops, etc., all of this does not add up to a randomly-assembled jigsaw of sounds. Instead, it is a kite which is released and guided by safe and steady hands, and which inhabits the winds of all climate zones.

"Three years after their phenomenal Shy Noon album on the seminal Gefriem label Harald 'Sack' Ziegler and Frank Schültge Blumm continue a home recording series that travels between their postboxes since 1999. Sack & Blumm are not a band or a studio project, but may be described rather as a home recording project that was conceived independently in their bedroom studios in Berlin and Cologne. Instead of being sequenced on computers, the music lives from the experience of two true musicians. Folk themes are set against digital fragmentations. Sounds are taken from everywhere. Instruments include horn, kalimba, tabla, bass, knitting needles, toy drums and toy piano, melodica, mbira and more. Even Rod Stewart is hidden somewhere on this album."

Originally released in 1999. "After last year's highly-acclaimed Die Fuenfte Dengelophonie 7", Berlin/Cologne duo Sack and Blumm's single on Staubgold featuring two charming home electronica pieces. Sack & Blumm like to produce their music mechanically/physically in the room, using more or less everything that they can get in their hands. Structures arise from their curiosity in the origin and the physicality of sounds (wood, stone, sheet metal, paper, air... ) and from experimenting and playing with the materials (plucking, beating, rubbing, blowing). Musical instruments are based on these principles of generating sound and musical instruments can be everything and they can be found everywhere. The ones that you find in the toy stores are most of the times very attractive because they carry these very beautiful overtones in their ground noise level or they tend to be totally unpredictable which makes a high potential for surprising results. And not to forget, Sack & Blumm have both followed classical training before, on their instruments horn and guitar. Harald "Sack" Ziegler can also be heard as guest musician on Mouse On Mars' Niun Niggung CD."